Flipside

Last week we launched Flipside - a three month full-time programme which will enable digital businesses to access the wide pool of creative talents available in East London.

Flipside gives East London’s young adults an overview of what digital product design is all about through a combination of hands-on industry experience and classroom learning.

It is a culmination of six months design and developmental work, in which Ada worked with in collaboration with some of London’s leading digital design agencies and other industry professionals to create a unique industry-led approach to develop and launch local talent into digital careers. The agencies include ustwo, Made by Many, Beyond, and Sennep.

During the programme, the Flipsiders (as they have chosen to be known) will receive two live briefs to design a digital product. Working in groups, they will respond to the brief, receiving ‘just-in-time’ training from the agencies to develop and demonstrate their technical skills. They will be out working with potential users or the product, generating insights, creating prototypes and culminating with a pitch at the end of the 5 week spring.

Before jumping into their brief, Ada spent an action packed Induction week with The Flipsiders full of surprises. They created towers made of of spaghetti, created monsters out of playdoh, and put on a party one evening to meet their mentors. But it wasn’t all fun and games. East activity and each experiences was carefully designed to draw out mindsets of a digital product designer and interpersonal skills to work as a cohesive learning community. Not only that, the Flipsiders aligned around a shared purpose and had powerful conversations on how they want to work and support each other.

And that’s not all, over the three month programme, each Flipsider has an industry mentor and will be supported by Ada to develop the habits of highly effective people by focusing on the ‘whole person’.

The programme will culminate with a showcase event in April and the offer of a number of paid work placements with our industry partners.

They are now working with ustwo and Sennep on their first brief for a denim startup disrupting the retail fashion industry by making jeans with a history.

The programme is funded by the London Legacy Development Corporation and its Chief Executive, David Goldstone, said: “East London is a hotbed of talent and we’re delighted to work with these cutting-edge digital agencies to offer young east Londoners this exciting opportunity to develop much-needed skills. There are thousands of jobs in tech, science and media coming to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and the surrounding area in the next few years and we want to make sure that local young people have the skills and experience to take advantage of these fantastic opportunities.”